


a cloak of stags instead of flowers

by youremyqueen



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Canon Gay Relationship, Gen, M/M, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Possessive Behavior, Pre-Canon, Pseudo-Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-29
Updated: 2012-03-29
Packaged: 2017-11-02 16:34:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youremyqueen/pseuds/youremyqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's her <i>brother</i>, though. He's not supposed to kiss Renly, he's not supposed to kiss anyone. He's supposed to hold her hand when she's afraid and braid flowers into her hair when she asks nicely and be the only boy at the ball to be able to dance with her without his palms getting sweaty and his steps getting clumsy.</p><p>Written for throneland on livejournal, the prompt being: <i>side stories, prequels, sequels, etc...</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	a cloak of stags instead of flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Contains slightly incestuous undertones. Very minor spoilers up to there beginning of ACoK.

She likes how he looks on his horse, shining and tall, like so many roses.

She doesn't like that he practices all day, that he has less time for her and for their days running through the gardens playing monsters and maidens - days of him as a the maiden and her as the monster and laughing giddily because of what Father would say about _that_. What's the point of being Knight of the Flowers if he's flowers only in name?

Today Loras smells of sweat and horse and the wine that Lord Renly likes to sneak him after their sword practice. Willas insists he's a bad influence and even though Margaery likes Renly - can't dislike him, because Loras is absolutely infatuated and they always like the same things - she sometimes secretly and desperately wishes he would be called back to King's Landing for some reason or another.

She has her cousins, has lovely Alla and charming Elinor, has oh so many boys who bring her flowers - _'A rose for the Tyrells' loveliest rose'_ \- and other such ridiculous drivel, but none of it compares by a half. None of them taught her to climb the big, tall oak tree in the south garden that's been here since Highgarden was built, nor how to the hide the bruises on her legs so that her Septa wouldn't tell Mother that she wasn't 'behaving like a lady.'

She behaves like a lady now, sips her tea and asks Loras how his practice had gone.

"Fine," he says, and Margaery's sure she's not the only one who catches the slight smirk he flashes his toast as he butters it.

That's confirmed when Grandmother Olenna's eyes flick to the light bruise on Loras's neck and the way his shirt's not completely buttoned at the top. "Not one of the Hightower girls, is it?" she asks, patting her chin with a cloth.

Loras's smirk grows slightly before going shy and polite, and his eyes flick down. "No," he says, the edge of a smile in his voice, "not one of the Hightower girls."

Then, oddly, he glances almost conspiratorially at Margaery.

Or not so oddly, if Margaery's being perfectly honest, because the first thing she did after she had her first kiss was subtly interrogate him to attempt to find out what he would think. He caught on fairly quickly and then mocked her mercilessly until she chased him around the courtyard, skirts clutched up above her ankles, yelling, _"Run, maiden, run!"_ though he couldn't run at all from laughing so terribly hard.

And it hits her then. Right there at the table with half of Highgarden in attendance, with him smelling like Renly's wine, as Grandmother Olenna says, "Well, it ought to be one of the Hightower girls. They're all dumb as bricks, of course, but pretty enough and you may have to marry one someday, so best get used to it."

Margaery doesn't hear what Loras says in response, or what Garlan cuts in with, just sits there sipping her tea and behaving like a lady.

\---

It's night and he's combing his hair and looking at himself in the glass - and it's ridiculous how alike they are, because that's exactly what she would be doing right now if she weren't slipping into his room without so much as a knock. He barely looks up, it's not unusual for them to spend their evenings talking late into the night, but when she just stands there staring at him, he stops what he's doing.

He runs his fingers along the teeth of his comb, an unconscious habit that he's always had, and then after a few moments more, says, "What?"

She folds her hands together in front of her. "It's Renly, isn't it?"

His errant fingers stop at that. "What?" The word has a completely different intonation this time, one where it's obvious that he isn't going to try to deny it, but has the decency to at least play coy.

"It's not one of the Hightower girls," she says, pushing herself away from the door to stand in front of him, "it's _Renly_."

There's a few more seconds of pretense before it breaks completely, and then Loras's entire face slips into a giddy smile, a little boy's smile, and he looks far, far too young to be getting marks on his neck from anyone, let alone the man he squires for. But he looks so pleased that she can't entirely remember why the fact of this has shaken her so thoroughly. He's her brother, though. He's not supposed to kiss Renly, he's not supposed to kiss anyone. He's supposed to hold her hand when she's afraid and braid flowers into her hair when she asks nicely and be the only boy at the ball to be able to dance with her without his palms getting sweaty and his steps getting clumsy.

"Maybe it is," he says, face betraying any ambiguity he might have otherwise lent that statement. "So, what?"

And she supposes he intends her to ask him a million silly questions, about how it was, about where it was and when and _why?_ But Margaery strangely doesn't care about any of those things, and could probably guess them all, anyhow. All she has is one question, which may indeed be sillier than all the rest combined.

"Do you love him?"

He pauses, brow creasing a bit, then laughing like she's some idiotic child who doesn't understand anything past flowers and knights and stories about Jonquil and Florian the Fool. Like she doesn't know what sex is, or how it doesn't need love at all. She knows all that and more, knows how he tends to look at Lord Renly, eyes wide and glowing with blind adoration, and that's why she asks the question.

"Margaery," he starts, chuckling.

"Don't 'Margaery' me," she cuts him off. "Do you?"

"I," he says, tilting his head a bit to the side, like maybe he hadn't considered it all, "I'm not some silly, little maid -"

"Oh, you're not?" she asks. "Why, that's news to me. Have you, then?"

He colors slightly at that, and if this were another conversation about another subject, she would smirk and gloat at that. "Not exactly."

"So, you are a maid, then?"

"When you say it like that it sounds…"

"Silly?"

He glares. "I suppose." Loras breathes out, fingers playing across his comb once again. "Look, it's complicated, but… no. I don't 'love' him. It's not like that." He doesn't exactly meet her eyes, doesn't look exactly convinced of what he's saying, and she's not sure she is either.

"Hmm," she says. But for now she chooses to believe it.

Because he can hold her hand, and braid her hair, and dance with her, and be her brother, as long as he doesn't go and do something stupid like _love him_.

She _hmms_ once more, then pulls the comb out of Loras's hands and goes to stand behind him. He's always had such lovely hair, as nice as hers or nicer, and there's an odd sense of familiarity when she runs her fingers through it. "You might looks good with a Stag cloak, actually," she says, barely holding back the smile tugging at her lips.

His brow creases, and he glances at her reflection in the glass before smiling a bit, too. "I might."

\---

He does love him, as it turns out, and sitting in that chair with the two of them next to her, her brother and her husband, laughing and jesting and looking at each other the way they do, and Renly feeding her this and feeding her that, and Loras jokingly instructing him on the etiquette of being a proper husband - _"As if you would know."_ \- _"I know how I'd like to be treated,"_ \- she cannot actually fault him terribly.


End file.
